GROUP SEEKS STRICTER CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT

Florida has a law to beat deadbeats who don't support their children: payroll deductions.

But in the eyes of Maria Hollcroft, that law too often is used as a last resort.

On Thursday, the Lauderhill resident is taking members of a grass-roots group she has started to meet with the Broward Legislative Delegation to demand tougher child support enforcement.

Hollcroft's Support the Children Action Group hopes to persuade legislators to impose mandatory deductions in every child support case.

"There are hundreds of parents out there who are getting nothing because their ex-spouses refuse to pay," Hollcroft said.

According to one Broward official, as many as two-thirds don't pay on time.

"What Florida needs to do is immediately begin ordering payroll deductions at the time support is ordered instead of waiting to see whether the parent will pay on his own," Hollcroft said.

Hollcroft said her group will give legislators a petition with the names of 300 mothers and fathers who also want the law revised.

Thursday's 4 p.m. public hearing at Pembroke Pines City Hall is the third of five meetings the delegation is having to seek community input on issues to be considered by the Legislature in March.

"We want to make sure they do something about this," Hollcroft said. "It's not fair to let these deadbeats get away when we have a law on the books that can stop them."

In Broward, child support enforcement is primarily handled by two agencies: Broward County's Child Support Enforcement Division and the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services' Office of Child Support Enforcement. But private attorneys also handle some cases.

By Florida law, a judge can order payroll deductions at the same time child support is ordered. But enforcement officials say parents often are first given a chance to pay on their own.

"It may be because people attach a stigma to having their wages withheld," said Sue Baldwin, director of the county's support enforcement division. "It presupposes that no one is going to be responsible and pay in a timely manner, but I believe that judges are not ordering it because attorneys are not asking for it."

"About a third of the 8,500 cases pay in a timely manner," Baldwin said.

But that means two-thirds don't.

Mary McConnell, an assistant in the HRS enforcement division in Tallahassee, said she favors payroll deductions.

"If we had our choice, 100 percent of our cases would be payroll deductions,' McConnell said. "We request it every single time, but it's not always granted."

State officials don't know how often payroll deductions are requested and granted.

But last fiscal year, from July 1989 to June 1990, HRS used subpoenas to collect $8.13 million in support payments, state records show. The state collected an additional $4.61 million between last July and November.

The county, which serves any resident except those who receive public assistance such as welfare from HRS, hauls in delinquents four times a year. This year, the county collected about $480,000 from those sweeps.

"This is our last-ditch effort to collect from those who owe," Baldwin said.